Le voilage des lumières (The Veiling of Lights)

This hand-colored lithograph by René De Pauw satirizes wartime blackout regulations during World War I. Two figures in bed react with alarm as a stern, pointed-hatted authority figure looms above them, wielding fabric to obscure a lamp—enforcing mandatory light restrictions to prevent enemy aircraft detection. The scene employs the exaggerated bodily distortion and domestic comedy characteristic of Belle Époque satirical prints, continuing traditions established by Daumier and Gillray. The couple's panic and the officious figure's geometric severity create humorous tension around state intrusion into private life. This period marks a crucial moment when illustrated satire—once the dominant form of political commentary—began yielding to newer media, though its visual language of caricature and grotesque proportions would directly inform emerging comic strip and comic book conventions.